


Christmas socks

by Purplehead



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Christmas, Light Bondage, M/M, MoreTagsWillShowUp, ProbablySomeSexScenes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-23
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-08 16:42:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13462302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Purplehead/pseuds/Purplehead
Summary: “What do you mean, Mycroft is coming over?” Sherlock is looking at me as if I’m crazy, which, I suppose, I very well am, at least in his eyes.“I invited him, Sherlock.”“Yes John, thanks for the incredibly useful explanation, I really had not figured that out on my own just yet.”“Right, be an arse if you want to be. He’s coming over, and that’s that. Nobody should be alone at Christmas.”“He could go to mother and father’s.”“They’re in Mallorca, Sherlock, your mum called you about that three weeks ago. Christ, the card they sent us on the mantle.” I point to the card depicting an overly bright ocean, which is being held upright by the skull Sherlock refuses to move to a slightly less unsettling place, his bedroom for instance.





	1. Chapter 1

“What do you mean, Mycroft is coming over?” Sherlock is looking at me as if I’m crazy, which, I suppose, I very well am, at least in his eyes.

  
“I invited him, Sherlock.”

  
“Yes John, thanks for the incredibly useful explanation, I really had not figured that out on my own just yet.”

  
“Right, be an arse if you want to be. He’s coming over, and that’s that. Nobody should be alone at Christmas.” I move from my chair, which I had been very comfortably sitting in, reading an article on modern medicine and the importance of opening up the conversation about gender with your patients. It was an interesting article, and the arguments they raised were, obviously, valid , but, with a fuming Sherlock standing over me, I simply can’t concentrate.

  
“He could go to mother and father’s.”

  
“They’re in Mallorca, Sherlock, your mum called you about that three weeks ago. Christ, the card they sent us on the mantle.” I point to the card depicting an overly bright ocean, which is being held upright by the skull Sherlock refuses to move to a slightly less unsettling place, his bedroom for instance. In the beginning it rather bothered me, having a dead person’s head, or at least the structural remains of that, sitting on top of the mantle. Now not so much anymore, though I would never admit that to Sherlock of course, but it has started to remind me of Shakespeare. Whether fancying myself as Hamlet is a good notion, or a rather frightening one I am still considering. Let’s just hope I don’t suddenly start eyeing up my own mum.

  
“I know that.” He gives me a look that seems to say ‘do you think I’m an imbecile, because I’m not. I’m really, really not. Want me to prove it?’ The look always reminds me of a toddler who is being forced to wear clothes they don’t want to, the moment just before he starts to stamp with his feet, throw whatever is in his hands on the ground and wails like a little pig. I really hope Sherlock won’t start one of those tantrums, not today.

  
Instead of responding to his not-yet-there-tantrum, I decide to do something more productive, like putting on the kettle.  
My hand hovers over the on-button, I look back at Sherlock, and immediately change plans. Without looking at his face again I pick up my coat, pat my pockets to check whether I have my wallet and am out the door. Mumbling something about needing to get milk in Sherlock’s general direction. There is no way I will remain for the tantrum. I won’t have Sherlock ruin my festive mood, when it’s not even Christmas yet. I go to the shops, actually buy some milk and am reminded by the festive decorations hanging just about everywhere that our flat is awfully bare. With this new mission in mind I spend several hours in too many shops, standing in between rows and rows of mostly women, who are determined to get a good deal on the decorations, this close to the holidays. When I come back home, bringing some Indian curry takeaway, because sod cooking, Sherlock isn’t in the flat.

  
The curry is nice, the silence the absence of Sherlock always brings is even nicer. I watch two reruns of EastEnders, then decide that that is really enough for anyone’s mental health and come to the conclusion that someone might also have to put up the decorations.

  
I put a Police CD in the player, press on play and crank up the volume to where I will most likely suffer some minor inner ear damage. A beer in my left hand, struggling to put up decorations with my other, I slowly transform the flat into something which someone might consider festive. If you squinted, and kind of blocked out the rather unusual permanent decorations, such as bullet holes, acid stains on every possible flat surface, and several scorch marks which I really don’t want to know the origins of. Even the skull gets a father Christmas hat.

  
Mrs Hudson comes to check in on me, slightly tipsy herself, at around midnight. We drink two glasses of port each from a bottle she found in an undisclosed place. Why she was already tipsy she won’t divulge, not even after the second glass of overly sweet, yet slightly tangy port. I pretend not to notice that the buttons on her blouse have been done up wrong, and that she has a hickey just under her collar. The fact that she apparently has a more interesting sex life than I do depresses me into accepting the remains of the bottle, as a nightcap, she says. I help her down the stairs, under her constant muttering that it’s entirely unnecessary, that she is used to far larger quantities of “real drink, not this soft girly stuff”.

  
When I go to bed, sometime later, after having finished up the rest of the bottle and watching two more horrible programmes on Channel 4, Sherlock still isn’t back from wherever he went to.


	2. Hangovers and the Thames

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More actual cute-sy bits will follow, i promise.

At six my alarm goes off, as it does each morning, I look at it for several seconds, register my headache and incredibly dry mouth, then decide to do something I almost never do, and switch it off, turn back around and go back to sleep. To hell with my natural clock with its military precision. When one has a rare free day from the surgery, one should use it well.

At seven I wake up again, the headache hasn’t really subsided, nor the dry mouth. But I also know I won’t be able to sleep past this point, and that I will be able to remedy at least one of my hangover symptoms. With bleary eyes I drink some water from the toothpaste ridden glass in the bathroom, and have a shower which helps me wake up just a bit more.

Sherlock still isn’t home when I have finished my breakfast (stale bread made into toast and the last remnants of some strawberry jam, complimented with several painkillers to sooth my poor head) some time later. I finish the article I had started yesterday, and start writing up the case Sherlock and I finished last Thursday. I edit heavily, I don’t mention, for instance, the fact that Sherlock spat on one of the victims, to prove a point, he told me later. Nor do I explain in too much detail how he got the case, the fact that he nicked it from Lestrade’s desk will most likely not impress too many. After enough cups of tea to nearly get a caffeine overdose, and responding to an absurd amount of inane comments on the previous case posts on the blog (Highlights of the list were: _I don’t believe any of this. – Jack, 43; OMG!! So excited when I saw the new blog post! I always read them immediately because OMG you knowwww.. But be honest John…. when will you spill the T on Sherlock’s dating life?! Is it true the two of you are secretly dating?? XOXO – Hot4U, 21; This is a load of bollocks. – Marnie, 63; Sherlock, I lost my pussy somewhere, will u help me find it? – Hottie, 18; I think the fact that fags like these are appearing on the telly now is a clear sign on how those arabs have been ruining our country! – Arthur, 56_ ) I finally move away from the laptop for a bit, stretch my legs and start making a grilled cheese sandwich, as every self-respecting 32 year old professional should, of course.

Just as I bite into the grilled cheese, the front door bangs closed.

“Sherlock, where have you been the entire night?” I call downstairs. He doesn’t reply, but instead moves up the stairs at an incredibly slow pace. Most likely to annoy me, I’m sure.

“None of your business.”

“You look horrible, and smell as if you took a dive in the Thames.”

His silence to that reply is worrying. “You didn’t actually, did you?”

“Honestly, John, it really is none of your business.”

“As your friend, and blogger, frankly, yes it is.”

“Please don’t ever use the word _blogger_ again. And what on earth have you done to my living room?”

“ _Our_ living room, and I decorated. It’s Christmas in five days, remember?”

“I don’t  like it. Take it down.”

“No.”

“I mean it.”

“As do I. Now do shut up and take a shower please, you truly smell vicious.”

“No.” The corners of his mouth are starting to point upwards, he’s obviously enjoying getting a rise out of me.

“Now, Sherlock.”

The “no” reply is more drawn out this time. Honestly, it’s like dealing with a petulant toddler.

“I’ll make you a grilled cheese sandwich if you do.”

“I want slices of banana on top of the cheese.”

“That sounds more disgusting than the very descriptive description you once gave of how many maggots you once found crawling around the lump of brains you left in the fridge for three months.”

With an attempted swish of his still damp coat he rounds the corner towards the bathroom, just as the door closes I hear a distinct “Don’t forget the banana or else I’ll put maggots in your bed.” Honestly, he’s such a child.

Just as I’m slicing the banana and heating the skillet at the same time, yes, I can in fact multitask, my phone rings.

“John Watson.”

“Ah, John, it’s Mycroft. May I speak with Sherlock, please?”

“You rang my number Mycroft, not Sherlock’s.”

“Yes, I know.” His tone is oh so condescending, entirely against my will I feel my face heating up.

“Then perhaps, Mycroft, you should ring Sherlock’s phone, instead of mine, when you want to talk to him. I’m not exactly his assistant, you know?”

“His phone was completely ruined by the water last night.”

“Oh dear Lord, he didn’t actually take a dive in the Thames did he?”

The silence on the other end confirms my worried question. How is it that when one hangs around with Sherlock Holmes, they start needing alcohol at two in the afternoon?

“Right, he does know that can mean he is now infected with a gastrointestinal illness?”

“It was for a case!” Sherlock shouts from the bathroom. “Don’t tell him I’m here.” I don’t even have to ask how he knows it’s his brother on the other side of the line.

“May I just speak to him, John?”

“He’s, ah, in the shower. Sorry.” Even to my own ears the excuse sounds lame.

“John, I really need to talk to him.”

“He really is in the shower.” Sherlock isn’t even here anymore to help me come up with a better excuse, the coward quietly scurried away to his room.

“John.” He is starting to sound pissed now. And with that, I am starting to get pissed. Why am I the designated peace-maker between these two brothers? Why do they have to ruin my free days with their unnecessary banter?

Fuck it. “Oh oops, Mycroft, I think my battery is low, phone just made a beep-y noise, you know. I’ll just go a-…” With a sigh I hang up on the man and turn off the sound of the phone, I can’t truly turn it off in case they need me for an urgent case in the surgery, and toss it on the couch. Hopefully it looked as dramatic as I felt it should.

“Sherlock! As repayment for that, you’ll have to make your own damn sandwich! I’m going out.” Without waiting for a reply I rush down the stairs, and, of course, into the icy-cold rain that pours down over London.


	3. Rose Garden

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please forgive my probably incorrect depiction of the London Zoo, i've never been there. I hope you guys are liking the way this fic is progressing :)

My feet seem to automatically take me to Regent’s Park, no longer caring about the cold drops streaming across my cheeks, neck, back, forcing their way into my clothes, I look around me, at the hurried faces, flashing by, hidden by their umbrella’s, or sleek wet hair. Once I reach the Rose gardens I am completely soaked through, my socks are sopping in the cheap trainers I normally only wear around the house. The empty rosebushes look forlorn. My only companions are some pigeons, not caring about the rain, and a flock of Asian tourists, hiding underneath their rain capes, yet still making photographs of everything around them. I wish for the smell of the roses blooming in summer. As I move out of the depressing Rose Gardens, and onto one of the many lanes, I wonder if my feelings for winter would be changed if I moved to a hot country, could I escape this icy cold, yearly torture by moving to Croatia? Are my feelings to do with the weather? Bringing up associations I had hoped to be long forgotten? Or is it the entire season, and all that comes with it?

   
My useless mental wanderings seem to have brought my feet to the zoo, and I feel a smile fuelled completely by irony pull on the corners of my mouth. As I get a ticket, paying a fee that seems exorbitant, the employee behind the thick glass gives me a look that seems to both say: ‘what the fuck is wrong with this bloke?’ and ‘I kind of hope he’s all right’, instead of conveying either of these statements she smiles an uncertain smile at me. Through the still pouring rain I try to repeat the custom.

   
Not many are around when I walk aimlessly past the first enclosures, which is probably not all that surprising, at 3 o’clock on a Tuesday, in the pouring rain.  
Within what seems like the blink of an eye I am inside of the aquarium, sitting on one of the benches, looking at one of the main tanks. I wonder at my ability to change location without my brain actually registering it, but dismiss it as any cause of possible worry. A stray thought about doctors being the worst patients enters my mind, but that too, I quickly dismiss.

  
The school of brightly coloured fish in the tank move in and out of my sight of view, playing hide and seek. I wonder if they can see me, and if they can, what do they think I am? A very strange, oddly proportioned shark?

  
My musings are interrupted by the sight of Mycroft Holmes, immaculate, not-even-a-drop-of-rain-on-his-posh-probably-very-expensive-shoes Mycroft Holmes. I don’t think I have ever hated anyone with such vigour as I am hating Mycroft now. Pure hot anger is taking over my stomach, bile in the form of the strongest profanity I know, some of it in Arabic, is trying to claw it way upwards. Fuck this.

  
“Mycroft. Go. Away.”

  
I notice my anger has only worsened during the walk here. Where it was once just annoyance, coupled with the persistent symptoms of a hangover, it has now, due to the rain, and the memories attached to this place, turned into something real, something that makes the air around me simmer, something that I can already feel clouding my judgement.

  
“John, you’re soaking wet. Anthea is waiting outside, why don’t you”

  
I interrupt him with a snarl: “Shut up. Shut up. Shut up!”

  
A little boy who had previously pressed his nose against the glass of the tank, trying to attract the attention of the fish he kept calling Dory, turns around, startled by my outburst. His nose left a greasy imprint on the otherwise pristine glass.

  
“John…”

  
“No. No, Mycroft. Don’t ‘John’ me. I want you to leave. I want your fucking security detail to leave. I want you to stop calling me about Sherlock. I want you to leave me and my childish tantrum alone.”

  
“I merely called this morning because I needed to speak to Sherlock.”

  
“Don’t bullshit me, Mycroft. Don’t belittle me. I don’t know why you like speaking through me to Sherlock, I don’t know why you think you need me as a buffer, but you obviously don’t. If you could find and follow me here, to the bloody zoo of all places, without even my phone on me, you should have no problem locating that damned brother of yours!”

  
“His phone was damaged because of his little swim in the Thames, I explained that this morning.”

  
“Mycroft, fuck off. I already warned you not to bullshit me. If you can manage to get your way to a fucking zoo, you can manage to get one of your little toy soldiers to go and deliver your message to Sherlock.”

  
Surprisingly he keeps silent after my outburst. My eyes are observing his, as he follows the school of fish around the tank. After a while I wonder if he thinks about how the school of fish is just a giant metaphor for how our society is shaped, I wonder if he would see himself as part of the school of fish, or the giant looking over them, from outside the glass.

  
Without my noticing a woman has approached us. “I’m sorry, but have you seen a little boy around here? Seven years old, blue jumper with a crocodile on the front.”

  
“Just two minutes ago he went that way.” Mycroft points towards the shark tanks a bit further ahead. Of course he noticed the boy, I didn’t even see him, let alone which direction he wandered off to.

  
“Thank you so much!” She sounds relieved, and grateful. I imagine them getting home, he getting an earful from her, hating it, but secretly basking in the love she obviously feels for him. One of the many seemingly pointless family memories that he will deem unimportant enough to probably forget. As the woman passes by again, nodding kindly to Mycroft, struggling seven year-old in her tight grip, it makes me happy, yet also so very melancholic that there are good memories being made in this place. The idea seems too alien to comprehend.

 

“I’m sorry, John. It seems that apologies are in order.”

  
He waits a few seconds, probably for another explosion of anger on my part, but I just feel empty now. Empty again.

  
He continues. “I should not have come here, should not have intruded into your privacy like this, I honestly merely wanted to see if you were all right. I didn’t necessarily think Sherlock would check up on you.”

  
I snort at the entire notion and he seems relieved to hear the noise.

  
“Please let me at least take you home, or to another place you want to go, if you’re not ready to see Sherlock just yet.”

  
Fifteen minutes ago that offer might have been appealing, but not any longer, my anger seems to have deflated, and with it my sense of temperature seems to have returned. Shivering lightly I nod in his directions, and stand up in a slow motion. Seemingly as one we move towards the exit, where, just inside, looking at her phone and typing away, stands Anthea. As soon as she spots us she holds open the doors, murmurs a soft “hello” and is again lost in the handheld screen. Without having to look up she leads us to the exit.

  
The weather has changed. The clouds have made way for splotchy bits and pieces of blue amongst the heavy grey. Irrationally, I find myself wishing for the return of the thunderous clouds, and lashes of rain, this weather seems far too hopeful for my current mood.

  
Just outside the exit is Mycroft’s sleek black car waiting, Anthea moves to the front seat, sliding in next to the driver, leaving the backseat to Mycroft and I.


End file.
